Monday, October 19, 2015

Black Bean Salad

This is one of my new favorite salads. I love dishes that are simple, easy, dairy-free, and wheat free, soy-free, and nut-free so that we all can enjoy them together.

The inspiration for this dish was a salad I had years ago when we lived in Texas, and I decided to finally figure out my own dressing for it - for truly the dressing is what completes this salad!




For the salad:

2 cups black beans, already cooked and drained
2 cups frozen corn kernels, lightly steamed or roasted and cooled
2-4 red peppers, diced (you can use a mix of red/green peppers, too if you like)
4 tomatoes, cut into cubes
(the original dish had raw onions in it, but raw onions are a major source of food poisoning, so they scare me, and my picky family won't eat it anyway)
(You can totally adjust this and use more or less of something as you like - go ahead and make this "your own"! - it's great with acocado, or lettuce, or quinoa, or all, or whatever inspires you!)


For the dressing:

1/4 cup balsamic vinegar
juice of 1 orange or clementine (I had a clementine in the house)
1/4 cup olive oil
2 Tablespoons tomato paste
Chili pepper flakes (to taste)
Smoked paprika (to taste, I used about 2 tsp)
salt (to taste)
ground black pepper (to taste)

Place all the vegetables in a pretty salad bowl. Mix the dressing together in a jar, bowl, or container. Mix really well. Pour dressing over vegetables and gently toss it all together. Serve cold. 

This salad can actually be a meal in and of itself, or is a great accompaniment to anything at all.
Let me know if you give it a try!

2 comments:

  1. Hi, I surfed for "onions are poisonous" and while I came up with one or two results for human poisoning, the overwhelming opinion seemed to be that onions are no more poisonous, and even less so, than some other things we commonly eat. Where they are poisonous is for animals. Do you have any knowledge that I couldn't find? (I am quite willing to agree that my surfing isn't always the most efficient... ). Thanks.

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    Replies
    1. Hi Sue! Onions aren't poisonous. But they can spoil quickly and develop nasty bacteria on them that can cause food poisoning... So I learned from a former ER nurse, who dealt with many food poisoning cases. We often blame mayonnaise for food poisoning, but really the culprit is more likely to be the raw onions going off.

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